Promoting older persons wellbeing with an innovative ICT solution - DAPAS system
Cáritas Diocesana de Coimbra
(
Non-governmental organization (NGO)
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#SDGAction33630
Description
The delivery of an innovative solution based on the needs of older adults and their caregivers is essential nowadays. The DAPAS project aims to develop a solution to improve older adults’ quality of life and it consists of an app and home base devices to improve security and autonomy. Three organizations test the solution, for one year. The features are specifically designed to address the users’ needs, considering the possible lack of accessibility and low digital literacy. What makes this project special is the continuous user’s feedback. The solution became crucial during the pandemic as it has provided tools to fight loneliness.
The DAPAS project has started at September 2019 with a duration of 40 months. The project partners are: Exthex, IDEABLE SOLUTIONS, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, University of Deusto, Stëftung Hëllef Doheem, Medical University Vienna, New Design University, Red Cross Styria and Cáritas Diocesana de Coimbra, and it is co-funded by the European AAL Joint Programme. During the first months, the technical partners worked to integrate the technology and deliver the starter version. To design a solution especially made for older adults, their feedback is necessary, so the project planned a pilot in three countries (Austria, Luxembourg, Portugal). At first, the implementation was planned to be in-person with participants. For this reason, the project team developed some folders and content to explain the project approach and personal contact was planned. The testers were recruited, noting gender and social aspects, for not be excluded. However, during the implementation phase, the pandemic started, and the end-user organizations had to adapt to deliver the equipment safely and to provide training to the users. So, a contingence plan was created: formal caregivers were trained to make the installation, as they go to the users houses regularly to provide social care; the systems’ manuals were adapted (more user friendly) and the installation procedures were simplified, with the developing of three new documents: guidelines to safe installation (with guidance from the national health service), a report for the caregiver and a questionnaire for the participant to verify that all procedures were followed and that he/she felt safe. As a result, participants health was preserved and could receive the solution that helped them through a difficult period.
For now, 120 older adults have been supported by the project. However, with the system development, the objective is to reach a larger number, given the characteristics of our end users, who is an older person, who wants to live autonomously, with good quality of life, for longer time. According to the participants’ feedback, the system reduces loneliness and helps with socialization, contributing to their good health and wellbeing, allowing older people to have good active ageing and do not feel neglected by society. Moreover, the contingency plan created due to COVID-19 became a good practice and model to be implemented in other projects. The effectiveness of service packages on the daily life of the users and their relatives from a user perspective shall be documented and the results will be utilized for further improvements. The acceptance of the service packages from a market perspective is an important measurement and should be evident at the end of the project.
- COVID-19 contingency plan – without the plan we would not be able to implement the project and participants would not feel safe. - Collaboration from informal caregivers for the project’s success – it was crucial informal caregivers’ motivation and proactive during implementation and use of the system, supporting beneficiaries in everything they needed - Strong partnership with technical partners that solved technical matters that came up, this allowed for the technical solution to continuing working efficiently - Very good relationship with the end-users to keep their commitment to support the project during challenging times.
Sustainability is a key element in our project, ensuring that it can be replicated, supporting more individuals. The good practice that we want to share, and replicate is related to the human centered approach and the usage of the DAPAS system to improve elderly’s security and autonomy. Aiming to facilitate the participants to use the system, we created detailed and user-friendly manuals, which include photos to better illustrate procedures. We also take accessibility very seriously and we created a video for those individuals with visual impairment. Regarding the contingency plan, for other projects we will replicate the risk and mitigation analysis that was made so a good and safe practice could be created to deliver and implement the system to participants. We will also replicate in other projects the good practice of continuous feedback from the users to create a solution adapted to the real users’ needs.
- project website: https://dapas-project.eu/ - video of an formal caregiver and a participant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jd110Jnrx4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?fbclid=IwAR3rdHsMoTtRe-AeUMqc4UXnkC1wX443…
Covid-19 significantly impacted our project as most of our activities were in-person and we had to adapt them. We conducted a risk and mitigation analysis to understand how we could still implement the project without putting anyone at risk. The first change was training formal caregivers that already go to the end-user’s homes to provide social care in implementing and using the system. So, older adults had no contact with people outside their close network. Other needs revealed in our analysis was that the manuals were not user-friendly enough. Thus, we adapted the manuals to be more user-friendly as the project team could not go to users’ houses as often as they wished to help. Support could only be given remotely. To ensure that the process went smoothly three more documents were created: guidelines to safe installation (with guidance from the national health service), a report for the caregiver and a questionnaire for the participant to verify that all procedures were followed and that he/she felt safe.
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DAPAS system brings benefits to three distinctive groups: the older people, 65+, who have our system in their houses to feel less lonely and supported; formal and informal caregivers who can better support older people during the COVID-19 pandemic; and organizations involved in the project, that can incorporate the system in their care and health services.
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